MEDIA COVERAGE: Warren Irwin, CIO of Rosseau Asset Management, mentions Colossus Minerals Inc. in an interview with The Gold Report.
May 8, 2009
Dear Shareholders and Friends,
Warren Irwin, Chief Investment Officer of Rosseau Asset Management, highlighted Colossus Minerals in a recent interview with Streetwise Reports. In this exclusive interview with The Gold Report, he says that investments in companies with aggressive drill programs in promising deposits have paid off in the past and are likely to do so in the future. Gold or silver, copper or nickel, even if commodity prices fall, he argues that the miners with the higher-grade deposits and busy drills have�and offer�the best price protection.
Mr. Irwin is founder, Portfolio Manager and Chief Investment Officer at Toronto-based Rosseau Asset Management Ltd., a top-rated Canadian money management firm that has also earned significant recognition globally. Catering to high net worth and institutional investors, Rosseau specializes in maximizing long-term capital appreciation through North American special situation and event-driven investing. Rosseau's flagship fund boasts a 20.47% average compound rate of return since inception over 10 years ago, compared to 5.67% for the S&P TSX Total Return Index over same period.
I thought that you would be interested in reading his comments on Colossus Minerals. These are provided below.
Regards,
Ari Sussman Chief Executive Officer, Chairman of the Board
Mr. Irwin's Comments:
TGR: What smaller companies do you currently own and like in the gold area?
WI: Getting back to my theme of good-quality juniors that are expanding their resources, some of the names I like on the gold side are Osisko Mining Corp. (TSX:OSK), Queenston Mining Inc. (TSX:QMI) and Colossus Minerals Inc. (TSX:CSI) . They all have some pretty nice stories. I think Osisko is just a great story. I saw the property last fall and just to give you a sense of the lack of excitement about it then, I was the only person on the tour. I really liked what I saw, though�a tremendous deposit in Quebec, which is the best mining jurisdiction in the world. I saw low power costs, access to excellent infrastructure, highly skilled workers readily available locally and a very large, relatively low-grade deposit that I think could be mined very effectively.
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TGR: What about Colossus?
WI: Colossus Minerals is one of my favorites for a number of reasons. Again, the jurisdiction is one I like�it's in Brazil, a mining-friendly country. But what's interesting about Colossus is its very, very rich property. The grades are unlike anything I've seen in my career. And because of the tremendous grades, in terms of gold and some of the other precious metals�platinum and palladium�they're able to achieve a substantial amount of ounces of precious metals in a very small plot of land.
In my opinion, Colossus will get to 3 million ounces of gold and with byproduct credits, such as platinum and palladium, that gold can be mined at a negative cost and over a short period of time. That's extraordinarily lucrative and attractive for a major mining company to step in and mine this ore.
Right now, the company is extremely cheap and definitely on the majors' radar screens. The risk I see going forward is Colossus' ability to handle its relationship with partners. Its partner is a company called COOMIGASP (Cooperativa de Minera��o dos Garimpeiros de Serra Pelada), an organization of the Garimpeiros who once mined the deposit in a large open pit. They're teamed up with Colossus to work on mining the underground portion of this deposit. It's frankly an extremely exciting deposit, probably richer than anything else I've ever seen. It has a negative cost of production and could be mined very quickly. It's like having almost $3 billion worth of metal just sitting there ready for you to take it out. I think it's extremely cheap and I imagine a number of majors see the same benefit, too.
TGR: It's a large lake, right?
WI: That's right; the old open pit has filled in with water. What Colossus has is the down-dip extension of that high-grade material found in the pit.
TGR: What would it take for Colossus to go into production?
WI: It would not be very difficult. It's very shallow and, again, very concentrated. All these millions of ounces are in a very small area. It would require some underground expertise, which the local COOMIGASP does not have, which is why they brought in Colossus. But at the end of the day, I don't really believe it will get to that stage because the majors see the same things I see in this deposit. I don't see Colossus making it through to actually getting it into production.
To see the entire interview click here: www.TheAuReport.com/cs/user/print/na/2580 |